Canada Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai

An innovative 360° theater experience showcases Canada’s ability to solve future global challenges.

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INTRODUCTION

Expo 2020 Dubai was a global event that attracted more than 20 million visitors in less than 6 months and gave countries like Canada the opportunity to showcase their potential for meeting the challenges of the future.

The Canada Pavilion is designed around the theme ‘The Future in Mind’. Visual technology throughout the pavilion takes visitors on a journey that demonstrates Canada’s ability to creatively solve problems with the world community. The highlight of the pavilion is a 360° immersive theater that recreates a spectacular poetic odyssey through Canada’s four dramatic seasons.

All of the audiovisual systems in the pavilion were designed, installed, commissioned and programmed by Electrosonic in collaboration with experiential event designers kubik maltbie and technology partners Christie Digital, Medialon and 7th Sense.

** Photos courtesy of Expo 2020 Dubai

OVERVIEW

The goal of the Canada Pavilion was to demonstrate the country’s leadership in innovation and its opportunities for business, investment, immigration, study and travel. To engage the audience and tell the story in a compelling way, visual technology proved key.

Visitors enter the pavilion through a hall where a powerful interactive art installation symbolizes the uncertainty of the future through informative graphics and a series of glass boxes inhabited by glowing fossils.

Next, visitors move to the pre-show area where they can interact with prints on the floor that change the lighting and the color of images depicting Canada’s bird life through 26-feet of projection. Visitors can move around the space, touching different ‘footprints’ to create their own show.

When they enter the main circular presentation area, they view a 7-minute immersive presentation on a 360° screen. Multimedia content from a video server and multiple projectors creates a single continuous 360° image that shows panoramic shots of spectacular Canadian landscapes through all four seasons, interspersed with clips of Canada’s innovations and images of wind farms, ports and people working in the agriculture and fishing industries.

A large glass cube in the center of the theater creates a light show synchronized to the projected images. After the theater show, visitors then exit the pavilion to revisit the art installation.

CHALLENGE

In the main presentation space, the designers wanted to create a 360° immersive theater in a 172-foot circular room. The aim was to project a single, continuous 360° image that featured a wide variety of multimedia content. The images also had to be synchronized with a sound and light show on a glass cube in the center of the theater. The installation had to be completed on a tight schedule, but with the additional complication of COVID. Successful completion required close coordination between all the partners.

SOLUTION

Electrosonic worked closely with kubik maltbie, Christie Digital, Medialon and 7th Sense to design and implement the audio, video and control systems that bring the creative concept to life. In the 360° theater, content is delivered from a single video server that provides output to 13 Christie 10,000 lumen projectors suspended from a central point.

In the pre-show space, Electrosonic installed and blended the output from two Christie projectors with short throw zoom lenses to create a seamless Vioso presentation 26 feet wide.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Electrosonic has worked on Expo pavilions for more than 50 years and used that experience to deliver the project efficiently, despite the challenges of COVID and a tight schedule. We recognize that successful deployment of complex, large-scale immersive installations require effective collaboration with a variety of partners.

In Dubai, the Canada Pavilion was one of three pavilions supported by Electrosonic and our partnership with kubic maltbie, Christie Digital, Medialon and 7th Sense ensured we could deliver a solution that was innovative, creative and sustainable.